”Don’t scare anyone. But once you gain ground then move ahead. You must utilize as many people as possible who may be of use to us.” –Joseph Stalin to future Communist dictator of Hungary Mattyas Rakosi, December 5, 1944.

It really isn’t too hard to understand what is happening in the Middle East if you watch the facts.

1. Jordan’s King Abdallah, who President Barack Obama just visited, is clearly telling us what’s going wrong: that the Muslim Brotherhood is dangerous and so why is the United States supporting it? Presumably, this is what Abdallah told Obama.

2. U.S. policy is now escalating support for a Muslim Brotherhood regime in Syria and the Syrian rebels increasingly have open Brotherhood leadership.

3. Repression is gradually escalating in Egypt with arrests of moderates, Islamists being sent to the military academy, and many more measures.

Regarding Jordan, Jeffrey Goldberg’s has done an extremely valuable profile of Abdullah. The Jordanian monarch is telling Western visitors that their countries are making a big mistake by supporting the Islamists. He complains that the U.S. State Department is ignoring his complaints and that U.S. officials are telling him, “The only way you can have democracy is through the Muslim Brotherhood.”

He responds that the Brotherhood wants to impose anti-American reactionary governments and that his “major fight” is to stop them. No margin may be left for relative moderate and pro-American states between a Sunni Islamist alliance led by Egypt and including Turkey versus a Shia Islamist alliance led by Iran says Abdallah and he’s right. The only difference, Abdallah explains, between the Turkish and Egyptian regimes are their timetables for installing dictatorships. Egypt’s new president, says the king, is obsessed with a hostile view of Israel.

Meanwhile, while President Barack Obama was love-bombing Israel during his visit, U.S. policy was helping to install a Muslim Brotherhood supporter as the putative next leader of Syria. Obama’s strategy is, with appropriate adjustments to the national scene, the same as his disastrous policy in Egypt.

The new leader of the opposition coalition is Ghassan Hitto, an obscure figure who has been long-resident in the United States. His actual election contained two hints:

–He only received 35 votes from 63 members of the Syrian National Coalition. That show of support matches the number of Muslim Brotherhood’s supporters there.

–Only 48 out of the 63 even cast a ballot at all, showing lack of enthusiasm and possible U.S. pressure on groups to abstain rather than oppose Hitto.

During the Cold War, American policy toward Third World countries frequently looked for a “third way” democratic alternative, leaders who were neither Communists nor right-wing authoritarians. Today, however, the Obama Administration doesn’t do the equivalent at all, despite pretenses to the contrary. Rather it seeks leadership from the most seemingly moderate people who represent Islamist groups. Of course, this moderation is largely deceptive.

That was the pattern in Egypt; now it is the same failed strategy in Syria. Hitto is a typical example of such a person. He has lived in the United States and went to university there, so presumably knows America and has become more moderate by living there. He is involved in hi-tech enterprises so supposedly he is a modern type of guy. Remember how now-dictator of Syria Bashar al-Assad was lavishly praised because he studied and lived in London and was supposedly interested in Internet?

In addition, nobody has (yet) come up with an outrageous Hitto statement. His ties to the Brotherhood are not so blatant—even though they are obvious—that the Obama Administration and the mass media cannot deny and ignore them.

Yet the connections between Hitto and the Muslim Brotherhood—and those are only the ones documented quickly following his election—are extensive.

–He is founder of the Muslim Legal Fund of America, largely directed by Muslim Brotherhood people..

–He was a secretary-treasurer of the American Middle Eastern League for Palestine (AMELP), which is closely linked to the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP), which supports Hamas and terrorism against Israel.

–Hitto was vice president of the CAIR Dallas/Fort Worth chapter and director of the Muslim American Society (MAS) Youth Center of Dallas which was a Muslim Brotherhood front group.

The list goes on and on.

As if to sum up the situation, Hassan Hassan of the United Arab Emirates newspaper The National, published an article entitled “How the Muslim Brotherhood Hijacked Syria’s Revolution.”

About Barry Rubin

Prof. Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and a featured columnist for PajamasMedia at http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan)

MERIA Journal

Middle East Review of International Affairs

The Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal is the world's largest journal on the region, published quarterly by the Rubin Center with a global audience.
More about MERIA

Current Issue:

MERIA Current Issue

Click here for PDF
Since early 2016, China has increased its mediation efforts to help Syria achieve peace and stability. This study evaluates Chinese mediation efforts in the Syrian conflict by … [Read More...]

For PDF click here
Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, has been a center for Islamic State since its conquest by the group in 2014. The Iraqi government, the United States-led coalition and the … [Read More...]

For PDF, click here
Since the Iraqi Kurdish rebellion in the early 1960s, Turkish policymakers have perceived Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq as a major threat to the country’s national security, … [Read More...]

For PDF click here
Iran is actively supporting proxies in major conflicts in the following areas: Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories. In addition, there is evidence that … [Read More...]

For PDF click here
This article assesses the backlash surrounding German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “culture of welcome,” a policy of welcoming large numbers of refugees from the Middle East, North … [Read More...]

For PDF click here
In the decades since 1949, China has made major progress in the area of Middle East studies. These academic achievements are reflected not only in the great volume of publications, … [Read More...]

Support Our Work

We depend on your contributions. Donations from the U.S., UK, and Israel are tax-deductible. Please click the “Donate” button for instructions for donation via PayPal, credit card, or check.